2008 WI App 117
court of appeals of
published opinion
Case No.: |
2007AP2314 |
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Complete Title of Case: |
†Petition for Review filed |
Opinion Filed: |
June 17, 2008 |
Submitted on Briefs: |
May 28, 2008 |
Oral Argument: |
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JUDGES: |
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Concurred: |
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Dissented: |
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Appellant |
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ATTORNEYS: |
On behalf of the plaintiff-appellant, the cause was
submitted on the briefs of John C. Peterson of Peterson, |
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Respondent |
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ATTORNEYS: |
On behalf of the defendants-respondents, Stacey Cicero, On behalf of the defendants-respondents, The Shawano
Leader, Rod Christensen, Kent Tempus and Joe Vandelaarschot, the cause was
submitted on the brief of Gregory B.
Conway and David L. Lasee of
Liebmann, Conway, |
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2008 WI App 117
COURT OF APPEALS DECISION DATED AND FILED June 17, 2008 David R. Schanker Clerk of Court of Appeals |
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NOTICE |
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This opinion is subject to further editing. If published, the official version will appear in the bound volume of the Official Reports. A party may file with the Supreme Court a petition to review an adverse decision by the Court of Appeals. See Wis. Stat. § 808.10 and Rule 809.62. |
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Appeal No. |
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STATE OF |
IN COURT OF APPEALS |
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Vincent R. Biskupic,
Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Stacey Cicero, f/k/a Indemnity Insurance Company, The Shawano Leader, a Division of Madison Newspapers, Inc., Rod Christensen, Kent Tempus, Joe Vandelaarschot, a/k/a Joe Vandel and ABC Insurance Company,
Defendants-Respondents. |
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APPEAL
from a judgment of the circuit court for
Before
¶1 PETERSON, J. Vincent Biskupic is a former Outagamie County District Attorney and an unsuccessful candidate for Wisconsin Attorney General. He claims he was defamed by a newspaper article published by the Shawano Leader in August 2004. The article incorrectly stated Biskupic had been involved in bribery and graft.
¶2 Biskupic sued eight defendants, including the Leader, several of its employees, and Stacey Cicero, an individual quoted in the article.[1] The circuit court granted summary judgment dismissing the suit. We conclude Biskupic is a public figure. In order to prevail, he must prove that the defamation was made with actual malice. On this record, there is not sufficient evidence of actual malice to create a genuine factual dispute on that issue. We therefore affirm the summary judgment. We also reject Biskupic’s argument that the circuit court should have granted him judgment as a sanction for the Leader destroying evidence.
Background
¶3 Biskupic was Outagamie County District Attorney from 1994
until January 2003. In 2002, he ran
unsuccessfully for Wisconsin Attorney General.
During that campaign, an open records request revealed payments by
¶4 Before he was elected district attorney, Biskupic worked for five years in the Winnebago County District Attorney’s Office, including three years as deputy district attorney. At the time, Joe Paulus was Winnebago County District Attorney. In 2002, Paulus was voted out of office amid bribery allegations. In April 2004, Paulus was convicted of two federal charges for accepting approximately $50,000 to fix cases. The record includes fifty-six news articles and editorials from 2002 through 2005 mentioning both Paulus and Biskupic. Some discuss cases both Paulus and Biskupic were involved in prosecuting, while others cite the allegations against both men as a reason for changes in the justice system.
¶5 In July 2004, the circuit court judges in the Ninth Judicial
Administrative District, which includes
Judges from [the Ninth Judicial District] met in July and voted to eliminate the fees next year.
“I believe it was done in response to the bribery and
graft cases involving former Winnebago County District Attorney Vince
Biskupic,” said
Biskupic was convicted of accepting bribes to dismiss cases. Some of the money that defendants paid to have their cases dismissed went to organizations that he (Biskupic) was involved in or into his own pocket.
¶6 The next day, the Leader ran a correction of the article. The correction stated:
A story in Monday’s edition incorrectly referred to Vince Biskupic as a former Winnebago County District attorney [sic] accused of bribery and graft.
The name of that official is Joe Paulus, who was recently sentenced in federal court for personally accepting about $48,000 to reduce or avoid court cases.
Also, according to Shawano County Circuit Court Judge J.R. Habeck, the Paulus case had nothing to do with the cutoff of funding for [crime prevention organizations].
Biskupic is a former
Habeck said he’s never heard or seen any allegation that Biskupic personally benefitted from these funds. He has not been charged.
However, Biskupic was rebuked by the state Ethics Board in 2003 for striking secret deals with defendants to avoid prosecution in exchange for payments of up to $8,000 to local anti-crime groups and his privately operated crime‑prevention fund.
It was this issue, Habeck said, that raised statewide judicial awareness of the possibility of paying sums without court proceedings, leading to a review of [crime prevention organization] practices.
The Leader ran a second correction on its front page in early September in response to a demand letter from Biskupic.
¶7 Biskupic filed suit in August 2005. He alleged two claims relevant here: slander against
¶8 In her deposition,
¶9 Joe Vandel,[2]
the reporter who wrote the story, was also deposed. Vandel said both
¶10 Vandel said he had no specific recollection of taking notes for this particular story, but his normal process was to take notes. When a story was finished, he would put his notes in a drawer. When the drawer filled up, he would discard the notes at the bottom, the notes from the oldest stories. Vandel said after the second retraction was printed he believed the matter was taken care of and there was no need to retain his notes any longer. He said his notes from the story had likely been discarded when they reached the bottom of his drawer.
¶11 All defendants moved for summary judgment, and Biskupic moved for judgment as a sanction for Vandel’s destruction of his notes. The circuit court granted all defendants summary judgment. The court concluded Biskupic was a limited purpose public figure, and the actual malice standard applied. The court held the summary judgment submissions showed “the defamation occurred as a result of confusion and negligence, not malice.” The court denied Biskupic’s motion for sanctions.
Discussion
¶12 Whether summary judgment is appropriate is a question of law
reviewed without deference to the circuit court, using the same methodology. Green
Spring Farms v. Kersten,
136
I.
Biskupic’s
status as a public figure
¶13 Defamation is a false statement that tends to harm a person’s
reputation.[4]
Hart v. Bennet, 2003 WI App 231,
¶21, 267
¶14 The first question in this appeal is whether Biskupic is a
public figure. If he is, Biskupic must
prove the Leader or Cicero acted with actual malice. See id. Whether a person is a public figure is a
question of law reviewed without deference.
Lewis v. Coursolle Broadcasting, 127
¶15 The actual malice standard originated in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan,
376 U.S. 254 (1964). Sullivan was an
elected city commissioner in
¶16 There are two kinds of public figures: public figures for all purposes and public
figures for a limited purpose. Maguire v. Journal Sentinel, Inc., 2000 WI App 4, 232
¶17 Limited purpose public figures, on the other hand, are
otherwise private individuals who have a role in a specific public
controversy. Van Straten v.
¶18 Here,
Biskupic was a public official until January 2003, when his term as district
attorney ended. Biskupic contends that
by August 2004, when the article was published, he was a private citizen, not a
public figure of any kind. The Leader
and Cicero contend Biskupic was a public figure for all purposes in 2004
because of ongoing publicity surrounding Biskupic’s actions, both while he was
district attorney and afterward. They
contend that if Biskupic was not a public figure for all purposes, he was at
least a public figure for a limited purpose.
They argue he was involved in a controversy over defendants’ payments to
nonprofits, and the article was germane to that controversy.
¶19 We
conclude Biskupic was a public figure for all purposes in 2004. As a result, we
need not decide whether he was a public figure for a limited purpose.[5] See
Gross v. Hoffman, 227
¶20 Our
supreme court addressed a similar situation in Lewis, 127
¶21 Lewis sued. He argued he
ceased to be a public figure in early 1980, soon after his legislative career
ended.
The question is whether an elected public official, such as Lewis, who commits perjury while in office and who does not deny that he participated in highly controversial and newsworthy activities while in public office which had little or no relationship to his official duties, should escape the searching public scrutiny which inevitably comes to an individual in this position who participates in such activities simply because he has resigned from office. We think not. To the contrary, his conduct in office and afterwards raised questions which were as worthy of public discussion in 1982 as in 1979. He had, in short, achieved the notoriety which the United States Supreme Court has declared makes an individual a “public figure for all purposes.”
¶22 The same analysis applies here. Biskupic was district attorney—a public official—until January 2003. He ran for statewide office and became embroiled in a highly publicized controversy over his crime prevention fund. The controversy over this fund resulted in extensive news coverage—as evidenced by well over 100 news articles in the record—and a statewide debate over the propriety of crime prevention funds that continued well after Biskupic left office. Biskupic’s actions also resulted in the Ethics Board investigation, which ended in October 2003—well after Biskupic left office.
¶23 In addition to the publicity over his crime prevention fund,
Biskupic was in the news in 2003 over an Elections Board audit that found a
number of campaign finance rule violations in Biskupic’s attorney general
campaign.[6] Finally, in spring and summer 2004,
Biskupic’s name was mentioned in a number of news articles discussing
allegations of prosecutorial misconduct by Paulus. While the publicity surrounding these issues
was statewide, it was especially prevalent in
¶24 This
evidence shows Biskupic, like Lewis, was not simply a public official who
served in office for a time, then left “to drift quietly into oblivion.” See
Lewis,
127
¶25 We conclude that, like Lewis, Biskupic cannot escape public
inquiry into his official conduct simply by leaving office. In August 2004, Biskupic was less than two
years removed from his district attorney position and his run for statewide
office. He also was less than a year
removed from the conclusion of various investigations into his conduct and was
currently being mentioned in the ongoing investigation of Paulus. As a result, Biskupic was in the public
spotlight in August 2004 to at least the same degree as when he left
office. At a minimum, he remained in the
public eye in
¶26 Biskupic argues he was not a public figure because he was not a
“celebrity” or “household” name in August 2004.
See Maguire, 232
II.
Actual
malice
¶27 The parties next disagree on whether Biskupic has created a
material factual dispute as to whether Cicero or the Leader acted with actual
malice. Actual malice means either the
defendant knew the statement was false, or made the statement with reckless
disregard for whether it was true or false.
Erdmann v. SF Broad., 229
¶28 Defamation cases present constitutional concerns not present in
typical summary judgment cases, including “the possibility that a jury will use
the cloak of a general verdict to punish unpopular ideas or speakers” and the
potential for a chilling effect on free speech.
Lewis, 127
¶29 This
does not mean that a defendant may escape liability simply by denying doubts about
a story. St. Amant v. Thompson,
390
The defendant … cannot … automatically insure a favorable verdict by testifying that he published with a belief that the statements were true. The finder of fact must determine whether the publication was indeed made in good faith. Professions of good faith will be unlikely to prove persuasive, for example, where a story is fabricated by the defendant, is the product of his imagination, or is based wholly on an unverified anonymous telephone call. Nor will they be likely to prevail when the publisher’s allegations are so inherently improbable that only a reckless man would have put them in circulation. Likewise, recklessness may be found where there are obvious reasons to doubt the veracity of the informant or the accuracy of his reports.
¶30 Biskupic argues actual malice may be inferred from
circumstantial evidence present here. He
points to evidence that neither Cicero or Vandel attended the judges’ meeting,
both Cicero and Vandel had time to investigate further had they chosen to do
so, none of the individuals Cicero or Vandel talked to mentioned Biskupic, and
Vandel destroyed his notes before litigation.
Biskupic also argues there is a material factual dispute over whether
Vandel fabricated the paragraph following
¶31 We disagree. First,
Vandel did not have “obvious reasons” to doubt the veracity of
¶32 As for Cicero’s and Vandel’s failure to use additional time to
investigate, Biskupic relies heavily on Hunt v.
¶33 Here,
by contrast, Vandel did not have any reason to question
¶34 We also disagree with Biskupic’s assertion that the evidence
shows Vandel fabricated the information in the paragraph following
¶35 This leaves Vandel’s destruction of his notes. In general, the destruction of notes allows
an inference that the notes would have provided evidence of actual malice. Torgerson, 210
¶36 The same rationale applies here. Biskupic argues only that the notes might
show
¶37 “A court’s role is to interpret and apply the law, not to
enforce standards of journalistic accuracy or ethics.”
III.
Sanctions
¶38 Finally, Biskupic argues the court should have granted him
judgment against the Leader as a sanction for destroying evidence—specifically,
for destroying Vandel’s notes.[9] Whether to impose sanctions for the
destruction of evidence is committed to the court’s discretion. Morrison
v. Rankin, 2007 WI App
186, ¶15, 305
¶39 Sanctions for destruction of evidence serve two purposes: upholding the justice system’s truth-seeking
function and deterring parties from destroying evidence. Morrison, 305
¶40 Here, the court denied Biskupic’s motion without analysis. However, the record shows that, at most, Vandel
destroyed his notes when he should have known litigation was possible. There is no dispute that the notes were
destroyed in Vandel’s usual course of business, as opposed to selectively, and
they were destroyed before this suit was filed.[10] In addition, as explained above, Biskupic has
not shown how anything in the notes could have established actual malice. Under those circumstances, the record would
not have supported a finding that the notes were destroyed as “a conscious
attempt to affect the outcome of
litigation or a flagrant knowing disregard of the judicial
process.” See id. The record therefore
supports the court’s discretionary decision, and we affirm that decision
despite the court’s failure to place its reasoning on the record. See
Randall, 235
¶41 Biskupic argues this case is akin to Morrison, 305
By the Court.—Judgment affirmed.
[1] For
clarity, we refer to the Leader, its employees and its insurer collectively as
the Leader. We refer to Cicero, her
employer and her insurer collectively as
[2] Joe Vandel is also referred to as Joe Vandelaarschot in the caption and record. The parties use “Vandel” in their briefs, and we do likewise.
[3] All references to the Wisconsin Statutes are to the 2005-06 version unless otherwise noted.
[4]
[5] The trial court concluded Biskupic was a limited purpose public figure and Biskupic argued that issue in his initial appellate brief. The Leader and Cicero, in their response briefs, argued that Biskupic was a general purpose public figure as well as a limited purpose one. Biskupic replied that Cicero and the Leader may not raise the general purpose issue because they have not filed a cross-appeal. He argues a cross-appeal is required because the circuit court granted summary judgment on the grounds that Biskupic was a limited purpose public figure, not a general purpose public figure. However, it is well-settled law that we may affirm a judgment on different grounds than those relied on by the circuit court. International Flavors & Fragrances, Inc. v. Valley Forge Ins. Co., 2007 WI App 187, ¶23, 304 Wis. 2d 732, 738 N.W.2d 159; see also State v. Holt, 128 Wis. 2d 110, 124-25, 382 N.W.2d 679 (Ct. App. 1985). A cross-appeal is only necessary when a respondent “seeks a modification of the judgment or order appealed from or of another judgment or order entered in the same action or proceeding….” Wis. Stat. Rule 809.10(2)(b).
[6]
[7] The
record includes fifty-three articles from
[8] The Leader story appears to draw facts from both cases. It states, “Some of the money defendants paid to have their cases dismissed went to organizations that [Biskupic] was involved in or into his own pocket.” However, Paulus was convicted of taking bribes from a defense attorney, not misappropriating money paid to a crime prevention fund. Biskupic maintained a crime prevention fund, but did not use the fund for his own benefit.
[9] In the alternative, Biskupic argues the court should have sanctioned the Leader by instructing the jury that Vandel’s destruction of notes “can be considered as evidence of malice.” However, as explained earlier, Biskupic has not presented a reasonable theory as to how the contents of the notes could show actual malice. Absent such a theory, Biskupic has not created a jury issue on actual malice, and the proffered jury instruction would be of no use to him. The only sanction useful to Biskupic is a directed verdict on actual malice by the Leader—the equivalent of judgment against the Leader. We therefore focus our discussion on that sanction.
[10] Biskupic argues the Leader knew litigation was likely because of his retraction demand letter. However, the letter did not threaten litigation and concluded by stating, “I appreciate your attention to this important matter. I am also asking that a copy of the published correction be mailed to me for my records.” It is undisputed that the Leader complied with the letter in all respects, and Vandel testified he believed the retraction disposed of the matter. Even assuming the letter gave Vandel reason to believe a suit might still be filed, this falls far short of showing that Vandel destroyed his notes intentionally in an attempt to influence a potential suit.